The Ballad of the Sad Café (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Carson McCullers
- First Published: 1943
- Type of Work: Novella
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: Love or romance, South or Southerners, Restaurants, bars, taverns, or pubs, 1930’s, Loneliness, Androgyny, Dwarfs, Isolation
- Locales: South (U.S.), Georgia
A weird love story, The Ballad of the Sad Café was dedicated to David Diamond, her husband's lover. The story elevates elements of their triangular relationship to archetypal significance. Once a dingy old building in the middle of a town where “there is absolutely nothing to do,” the café itself becomes a symbol of the human heart. Like a magic lantern, it may be lit by love—in this case, the love of a tall, muscular woman, Miss Amelia, for an itinerant hunchbacked dwarf, Cousin Lymon. Townsfolk are flabbergasted when Miss Amelia offers him room and board, for she has...
[The entire page is 700 words long]
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